


Brutus

by Quinny_555



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, But definitely not cannon, Character Death, Character Study, Dark, F/F, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Jealous Morgana (Merlin), Morgana in the role of Brutus, Not super different, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, Sexism, Song: Brutus (The Buttress), Sort Of, This is me trying a new writing style, Time Skips, Writing Exercise, Young Morgana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:42:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28300332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinny_555/pseuds/Quinny_555
Summary: “Sometimes I think I hate you,” she whispers into the darkness one night. “I… know that envy is an ugly thing. Yet it lingers.”“Only sometimes?” he whispers back. The clouds move to reveal the galaxy above them. She swallows.“Yes.”-Morgana struggles with herself, with destiny, her whole life. She wonders if it was worth it.
Relationships: Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Morgana & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Brutus

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by the song Brutus by The Buttress. I highly suggest listening to it before or while you read.

“My name is Morgana, but the people will call me King.” She said the words for the first time to Arthur. He laughed and told her that she couldn't be king. Women are the cursed sex, he told her sympathetically, and can not rule on their own. 

Morgana knew she wanted something more than what she saw ahead of her all her life. She saw Arthur, the boy who was not quite her brother, and she saw the things before him. She saw that he was to be king. She saw that he was meant to fulfill a great destiny someday. She never saw that for herself. 

No, what Morgana saw was what was expected of her. She saw her life as a lady of Uther’s court. She saw herself marrying a man of power for some meaningless alliance. She saw herself put into a little box, never to step out of it. 

She wanted more. She wanted what _he_ had. He was foolish, a child playing with things he never understood. He was selfish, and arrogant, and he never deserved the love and devotion that was laid at his feet by Camelot’s people. They clung to his every word, the speeches that he spoke that were written _for_ him. Words he did not understand, and so could not possibly mean. A mouthpiece for his father. 

She walked the cold stone floors of the castle, the night air chilling her to the bone. The cold around her could not compete with the resentment that burned within her. It burned when she walked alone, ruminating on what she could never have. It burned when a guard stopped her, told her that Uther wouldn't _approve_ of her walking the halls on her own, in her nightgown no less. It burned when she saw him do the same only to be nodded to when he passed, not stopped and sent off to bed like a child. It burned. 

She saw things in her dreams sometimes. His death, too vivid, too _real_ to be just a dream. He ignored her words, and eventually, she stopped wasting them. She came to wish they would come true. That they would no longer be near misses, narrowly avoided because lady luck favored him like everyone else. She wanted him dead. 

But she didn't. It _hadn't_ always been so. She hadn't always walked the halls on her own. She had walked them with him, sneaking in the dead of night on silly little missions. They had worked together, before the rules of court life had driven them apart. Raised him up. Pushed her down. Before he became everything she hated and everything she wanted to be. Before he was the perfect crown prince. Before she was the lady that should want to be courted by men, should not be so loud, so opinionated, so _much_. 

So no, she didn't want to see him hurt. She cared for him, knew that he wasn't _just_ a selfish child. That deep down he had a true and noble heart. They were siblings in all but blood. He was her brother, he had protected her when she could not protect herself. She hated herself for thinking it. She knew she could not live with herself if she ever acted on those thoughts, that she would strike herself down.

So maybe not, she reflected as she sat in her room, cold after seeing his untimely demise play out behind her closed lids, left cold without her ever-present resentment to warm her. Maybe she did not wish for an untimely death. Maybe she did not hate him. She wanted to _be_ him. She wanted what he had. She wanted the power, she wanted the people of Camelot to hang off of her every word. She wanted them to worship the ground she walked on. She wanted to be his equal. She no longer wanted to be the muse, but the poet too. 

She loved him, she knew, despite the fact that everything she wanted was his. She knew she loved him, but still felt the darkness she had always harbored grow. She watched him, watched him grow to be everything she knew he would. Everything she wished to be. 

“Sometimes I think I hate you,” she whispers into the darkness one night. They lay side by side on the damp grass of the training grounds. Empty jugs of wine and ale litter the ground between them. She knows that sober, she would never admit such a thing. “I… know that envy is an ugly thing. Yet it lingers.” 

“Only sometimes?” he whispers back. The clouds move to reveal the galaxy above them. She swallows. 

“Yes.” He remains silent. She thinks he’s better company when he’s drunk. “But I know I love you always.” 

“What do you envy?” She wonders whether he will understand. 

“You have what I want.” Moonlight shines on her face. She thinks she glows, even only for a brief moment. “All of it. I think, sometimes, that I could take it.” 

“So why don't you?” It is a fair question. 

“I wish to be great, in the way you are. I know that Uther wishes I were a son. I am not. I could never be what you are, even without you in the way. So I think… maybe I too could be great. Maybe I could support you and also be known. Maybe I could restore the good that he has taken from Camelot by your side.” _Maybe I could be good._

“I think that you need not strive far to achieve greatness.” She does not agree. She does not tell him that, though. He doesn't need to know. 

“Perhaps not,” is all she says. They never speak of that conversation again. 

She watches as he grows. The _more_ he becomes the fiercer her envy and resentment grow to be. It manifests in a physical way, in glowing eyes and shaky hands. In dreams that are not dreams, and fire that burns whether she wants it or not. 

She fears. He would not protect her if he knew what she was. What she has become. She would burn, like the curtains beside her bed and the thousands who came before her. She wonders if he would mourn her. She fears not only for herself, but for him as well. That he will allow himself to be so blinded by what he hates that he cannot see clearly. 

She fears that if she burns, so too will his heart. She fears that he will become everything she hates. That he will become his father. She had always known she could never be what he is meant to; now she thinks he may not either. 

Her fear turns to anger. A rage that has been sparked by the resentment she once felt. She thought resentment had burned, but she had been wrong. Rage burns. Rage burns like the pyre nipping at her heels, as hot as cold iron is frigid. Rage leaves no room for love. Rage allows her to see clearly, allows her to see that she will never be free under his rule. 

“I'll never be free here,” she hisses one night to her love. “Be it the magic or our sin, I can never be free. He will never free me. He will never free _us_.” Her love tries to argue in his favor, but cannot quite convince even herself. 

Morgana knows he wants the one thing he cannot have, the one person that is _hers_. She knows that he will never be able to feel her dark, soft skin under his calloused fingers. She knows that he will never have her heart. But he wants it. The one thing that is only _hers_ , and he wants it. She burns. 

Uther dies. She kills him. She kills him with the very thing he fears the most, with the very thing he would stop at nothing to eradicate. She leans over him where he lays, paralyzed under her glowing eyes. She whispers to him in the darkness of his chambers. 

“You've brought this on yourself,” she tells him. The fury in his eyes speaks volumes where his tongue cannot. “We’ve never done anything to deserve what you've done to us. Now you will burn too.” She stares at him with cold eyes. “At least you will be afforded the mercy of being dead when it happens.” 

Uther passed away in his sleep, Gaius tells them. There is no trace of poison and his death seems completely natural. She cries when the announcement is made. She feels no regret. She stands over his funeral pyre longer than anyone else and is left standing on her own, staring at the smoldering ashes. She wishes he had been alive to feel it. 

He becomes king. He does not free her, as she had expected. He does not intend to change, she soon sees. She mourns the loss of the boy she had loved. 

He listens to the snake in his court. He banishes her love for a crime she didn't commit. He imprisons Gaius for treason regardless of his innocence. She knows she is next. She knows that the oily bastard has his ear and that he is too far gone. 

The throne room is dark when she enters, and there is no light to illuminate the snake’s face. That is fine. She doesn't need to see him to kill him. He thinks he is here to seduce her. She knows he is here to die. Like with Uther, she feels no remorse when she slits his throat. She listens to him choke on his own blood, watches it stain her already dark dress and pale skin. She wonders what her love would think if she were here to see it. 

“Morgana, what have you done?” The horrified whisper does not startle her. She looks up at the man who claims to be her king with cold eyes. 

“What had to be done,” she says and shoves the now dead man forward. He hits the ground with a quiet thud and does not move. She cleans her dagger on the back of his cape. She can see the disbelief turning to rage. It is a transformation she is familiar with. 

“He was my uncle!” he shouts. Morgana nods.

“Yes. And now he is dead. He betrayed you, and I killed him.” He draws his sword. 

“He would never do that,” he hisses. “ _You_ are the one who has betrayed me.” She considers. She thinks about every time she wished him dead. She thinks about the vow her younger self had made, to do him no harm. She thinks about everything he’s done to her, everything he’s taken from her. She thinks about that night, with the wine and ale on the training field, and thinks that it was always going to end this way. 

“Maybe I am.” She, too, draws her sword. She wonders if he knows that she will inevitably win. He may have been born lucky, with the world tossed at his feet, but she is ambitious. She has more to fight for. He has his newly sparked rage, but he has not yet the time to use it to his advantage. He has not honed himself into a weapon. 

The fight is over quickly. His anger makes him sloppy, hers makes her ruthless. 

“Why?” he finally yells when she has him at sword point. She knows she looks crazed. Maybe she is. 

“I laid awake night after night and asked myself why it was you instead of me. I wanted what you have; I've _burned_ with it." She stops, looks at his pale countenance. She takes a shuddering breath. "But I do not do this only out of envy. I too have a destiny, one that I must fulfill. I will drive this blade into your heart for my people. For those of the cursed sex who are persecuted, for those who love as I do and are burned for it, for those who are what I am and die for it.” Her eyes glow and tears stream down his face. “I know now what that destiny is. It is to become what you would not.” 

“We both could have had what you want, that power! We could have ruled together!” She knows her eyes are not dry. Her sword does not waver. 

_“I don't want what you have! I want to be_ ** _you_** _!”_ she screams. The words sound shredded, torn through the thorns that have grown in her esophagus. She strikes true and he falls, never to move again. She stares as his body cools, until sunlight creeps over the horizon. It burns her pale skin, yet she feels cold. 

“My name is Morgana. The people will call me King.” 

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah! There is no Merlin, which I guess is the reason it ends differently than in canon. I wrote this all in one go last night upon hearing the song Brutus and thinking that it sounds like Morgana. Please let me know what you think!


End file.
